Persis did not reply. When he ventured to look in her direction, she was regarding him with strange dilated eyes.
"Thomas, you said she was Stanley Sinclair's wife."
"Well, she is, isn't she? Why, you don't mean—"
He interrupted himself, his look changing. "What kind of a man d'ye think I am, Persis Dale?" he challenged her angrily. "If you've known me all your life and think I'm the sort to be carrying on with other men's wives—well, I guess I'd better be going."
He got to his feet and then sank helplessly into a chair. He had never seen Persis cry before. He had not realized that she could cry. Yet without doubt those were tears upon her cheeks.
But if crying, Persis was smiling, too. His heart fluttered, and performed some extraordinary gymnastic feat, when she held out her hand.
"Thomas, I was in the wrong, I'll own it. I never favored jumping at conclusions and less than ever now. Maybe—maybe if I hadn't thought so much of you, I'd have been slower to think evil."
He did not trouble himself with the feminine lack of logic indicated in her closing words. He had clasped her hand in both of his and was holding it last, as if he never meant to let it go.
"Persis—Persis, you weren't fair to me in that, but I don't lay any claim to being all I'd ought to be. There's no end of things you'd have to forgive. I don't know as I've ever told you about the time Ed Collins and I—"
A movement on the part of Persis' disengaged hand checked his confession.